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Brewer lounge to seek license

BREWER, Maine — The owner of the Evolve Club & Pub, a lounge attached to The New Stable Inn at 448 Wilson St., will be back before city councilors on Tuesday looking for a liquor license.

Councilors endorsed a license application for the small club during their Dec. 8 meeting, but once a representative for owner Randy Drake, of Concord, N.H., got to the Maine Department of Public Safety Liquor Licensing and Inspection Division in Augusta, it was discovered the wrong type of license was marked.

Drake clearly had marked “hotel” under the type of license when he should have marked “Class A lounge,” Jeff Austin, licensing and compliance supervisor, said last month.

In addition, the management of the bar has changed, according to license application paperwork submitted to Brewer for Tuesday’s public hearing, City Clerk Howard Kroll said on Wednesday.

Jeffers Ashley of Bangor now is listed as the manager.

During the December public hearing on the first liquor license request, Linwood S. “Scott” Feeney identified himself as the lounge manager, gave an overview of the planned pub and answered city officials’ questions.

Feeney has operating under the influence and other convictions on his record, according to Bangor Daily News archives, of which city councilors were not informed.

Feeney also was sentenced in Penobscot County Superior Court in July 1999 to 90 days in jail and ordered to pay $62,500 in restitution after he pleaded guilty to misusing state restaurant taxes, from his ownership of the Lemon Tree in Bangor, and failing to file Maine state income taxes.

Deputy Mayor Joseph Ferris said after the Dec. 8 meeting that he did not know about Feeney’s past convictions and that he would have liked to have the information about his criminal history before voting on the liquor license application. On the first application, the pub owner indicated he wanted to open Dec. 10.

When the club’s application was delivered to Augusta by Feeney, his name was not on it, which did not pass state scrutiny, Austin said. Feeney also did not have the required $2,210 state liquor license fee.

The Evolve Club & Pub is proposed for the former Hitching Post lounge location, which the city closed in July 2008 after the operator failed to teach his employees to identify alcohol overconsumption.

Because a second public hearing is required, “they have to pay $450 again,” the city clerk said of the Evolve Club applicants.

Attempts to reach Drake on Wednesday using the number he listed on the liquor license application were unsuccessful.